Between You and Me

by Scott Nadelson

  He did happen to be present, though, on one of the Fridays when Aronson relinquished the bimah to Rabbi Mike, whose bulk made it look diminutive, flimsy as cardboard in front of the sprawl of his suit. Aronson looked just as insubstantial, thin as a stick on a high chair beside the Ark’s rippled velvet curtain, his face almost as pale as his white beard. Paul’s ordinary tendency would have been to appreciate his dignified lack of distinction, but he had Rabbi Mike’s words in his head—as inspiring as gelatin—which made him look at the old rabbi with mild disparagement. He also enjoyed the sly power of having a secret over him: “This is just between you and me,” Rabbi Mike said at the steakhouse every Sunday afternoon. “As far as he knows, I lick the ground he walks on.”

  In any case, he preferred Rabbi Mike’s way of leading the service, not bothering with the responsive readings of English translations Aronson indulged at length, cutting off the silent Amidah when a dozen people were still standing and swaying. He snapped his fingers when he announced the page numbers for the next prayer, and when the cantor’s singing veered from melody to unnecessary flourish, he stared straight ahead and drummed his thumb on his thigh. His brusqueness was more asset than liability, as far as Paul was concerned, though when it came time for the sermon he slowed his pace, approaching the bimah with a new kind of concentration, taking off his glasses and wiping them on his multicolored tallis while glancing from one side of the sanctuary to the other. Ten seconds went by, twenty. He set his elbows on the bimah, adjusted the microphone. People shifted in their seats, rustled the pages of their siddurs, coughed. Only when it seemed he wouldn’t say a word did he finally replace his glasses and begin in a voice not much more than a whisper, making people lean forward in their seats and adjust their hearing aids.

  Paul enjoyed the sermon, despite its being pitched at the young people in the room. Rabbi Mike began with a description of the comic book characters he loved as a boy: “Not just any superhero, mind you. I wasn’t into the Flash or the Green Lantern. How excited could you get about a guy with a light bulb on his finger? I’m talking Marvel Comics. Spiderman. The Fantastic Four. The Incredible Hulk. Couldn’t wait to get my hands on the next installment.” What he loved about these characters, he said, was that they were just ordinary people who’d been touched by something special, who were called to action by a world in need, who took on fighting for justice reluctantly but with great sacrifice, who kept their power secret from even those closest to them.

  And here he made an impressive turn, reminding Paul why, despite his weight and his shaggy hair, he was at the front of the room. “Ordinary people tasked with impossible challenges, their powers as much an affliction as a gift. These are the superheroes we know, the ones we need in our lives, and their stories are what give us a glimpse of God’s presence in the world. Just think about Moses in today’s Torah portion, with his speech impediment, his reluctance to believe in his abilities, his sudden outbursts of anger…”

  What Paul admired most was the performance. He’d become sensitive in his acting years to the nuances of playing a role. He took note, for example, of the way Rabbi Mike stood increasingly straighter as he went on and how his voice gradually rose, accentuating the rhythm of his words, until he was nearly shouting at the end: “Each of you is Moses. Each of you knows what is being asked of you—by your families, by your communities, by your planet, by your God—and each of you can heed the call if you choose.”

  It was a rousing finish, and a few people forgot themselves and clapped before the cantor started the next prayer. Cynthia whispered, “I knew we hired him for a reason.” Rabbi Mike, looking drained, went back to drumming his thigh. At the kiddush, congregants crowded around him by the food table, where he stood stiffly, arms crossed over his chest, answering questions with a dismissive shrug, occasionally reaching out for a cookie. Paul felt his own waistband pressing into his middle, and when Cynthia offered him a brownie, he turned it down. Eventually he caught Rabbi Mike’s eye and gave him a thumb’s-up. Rabbi Mike winked. In a corner of the ballroom, old Rabbi Aronson sat alone, nibbling cheese.

  Soon after, Paul told Rabbi Mike what he knew about his prospects for landing the head rabbi position, about the board’s concern that he couldn’t handle the human side of the job. He encouraged him to make personal connections in the congregation, to smile more often, to kiss a few babies. “You know, put on a show,” he said. He may have been betraying Cynthia’s confidence, but friendship deserved honesty, he thought, and anyway, if the information improved Rabbi Mike’s image, it would benefit everyone. Still, he added afterward, “Just don’t let on that it came from me.”

  “If they wanted some kind of teddy bear they should have hired one,” Rabbi Mike grumbled, biting a steak fry in half and then calling out to the waiter that his burger was undercooked. “You call this medium? It’s still squirming.” Still, he thanked Paul and told him he owed him. “I’ll put in a good word with the big guy,” he said, and pointed up.

  To help bolster his standing in the community, Paul convinced Rabbi Mike to audition for a part in the JCC’s spring theater production, an adaptation of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, set not on a plantation in the deep south but in Frankfurt in 1934. He didn’t see the point of re-imagining Big Daddy as a wealthy Jewish merchant whose fortune is threatened by the rise of Hitler, but the director, Riva Edelstein, insisted she understood what their audience wanted. She also insisted on playing Maggie opposite Paul’s Brick, and it was torment to see her spilling out of a chemise for six evening performances and two matinees, to have her meaty hands spread on his chest and her hot breath in his ear, shouting what was supposed to be a sultry whisper: You’ve got a nice smell about you, or, I know something that’ll make you feel cool and fresh.

  “She’s the spitting image of Elizabeth Taylor,” Rabbi Mike huffed, out of breath, on the treadmill the Sunday after a rehearsal. “Only in the wrong movie. She got it mixed up with Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

  “Maybe that should be the fall production,” Paul said. “We’ll set it in Spain during the Inquisition.”

  “I was thinking Oedipus Rex. In Jerusalem, 1948.”

  “You’d make a good father-murdering, mother-loving king.”

  “You can have it. I’ll take over lead when you retire.”

  Riva cast Rabbi Mike as Gooper, Brick’s conniving brother, who schemes to turn Big Daddy’s money over to the Nazis. “Perfect for me,” he said. “It’s preparation. Just wait till my sister tries to get ahold of our old man’s will.” Together he and Paul convinced Riva to drop her awful German accent and lie with her knees flat so she didn’t flash the first row. After rehearsal, too, they often stopped for a meal, and though Rabbi Mike had a natural presence on stage, knew how to project his voice, he still asked Paul for tips—how best to memorize his lines, how to get into character—which flattered Paul enough to make him forget he’d never had any formal training. They’d discuss their characters’ motivations and psychology and analyze the play’s themes and moral complexities, and during these talks Paul would occasionally be reminded that Rabbi Mike was indeed a rabbi, that despite his youth and his size he had insight into the workings of mind and heart that made Paul feel like a child. “I know what I know,” he said when they were puzzling over what made the play so powerful, what had kept it on stage for more than forty years. “That’s knowledge. I feel what I know. That’s wisdom.”

  And then Paul would wonder what he was doing with a rabbi in a steakhouse on Route 10, what he could possibly offer him. Rabbis needed friends like anyone else, he supposed, but he wished he had some response other than a stupefied nod. A minute later Rabbi Mike was talking about Riva Edelstein’s mottled thighs—“I don’t know how you’ll stand to look at those things up close. I’d rather stick a fork in my eye”—and Paul abandoned his doubts.

  On stage Rabbi Mike’s presence had a way of making him simultaneously confident and humble, and even with Riva’s awkward revisions the play was the com
pany’s best yet. At the cast party, Rabbi Mike toasted Paul and called him the star of the show, and though his voice was hoarse, his armpit sore from hobbling around on Brick’s crutch all evening, he stayed until Riva started turning out the lights and shooing everyone toward the door. The following Friday, Rabbi Mike led services again and referenced the play in his sermon, describing what he found universal about Brick’s suffering: that in trying to bury uncomfortable feelings, to shun painful truths, he only intensifies them. His drinking, his difficulty connecting with his family, his avoidance of intimacy with his wife, are simply symptoms of his inner strife. “We’ve all got secrets, and thoughts we’re ashamed of, and aspects of our character we’d rather not face. But only if we can be honest with ourselves—and with God—will we be free of those burdens and fully present to the people we love.”

  The truth was, Paul didn’t actually hear the sermon. Around that time he’d been renting classic horror films from the thirties and forties, which he’d been afraid to watch as a boy, and that night, as soon as Cynthia’s car pulled out of the driveway, he put on Jekyll and Hyde—the 1941 version, starring Spencer Tracy—and settled on the couch with a bowl of microwave popcorn, which at first he only salted and then, after a few bites, covered with more butter than it needed. Though the film didn’t frighten him—if anything, he found it dull and plodding—he couldn’t help recoiling every time Jekyll’s eyebrows began to bush out, his mouth opening into a lecherous sneer. What bothered him was how much Hyde resembled the uncle who’d left Paul and his sister his inheritance. Jekyll didn’t transform from a good man into an evil one; he changed from an uptown goy into a Lower East Side Jew. It was an insult—just because a person was ugly meant he was a killer?—and Paul found himself growing angry each time Hyde appeared. Before the film was two-thirds through, he pulled out the tape and switched on the news.

  Cynthia came home an hour later, flushed and smiling, the straps of her dress digging into the soft flesh of her shoulders. “My husband, praised from the bimah,” she said, kicking off her shoes and dropping onto the couch. He rubbed her feet as she described the sermon. “What shameful thoughts do you have?” she asked, stretching her arms over her head and letting her knees fall apart. He thanked Rabbi Mike silently, pushed away the image that sprang to mind—of Riva Edelstein beckoning in her white chemise—and leaned in his wife’s direction.

  It was a little more than two weeks later that Paul visited Rabbi Mike in his office. “I’m not sure what I expect you to tell me,” he said, perched on the folding chair in front of the desk. “I guess it would be nice to know I’m not crazy. That it’s reasonable to be so bothered by it all. And maybe if there’s a way I can learn to manage…I don’t know. I should probably just come listen to your sermons.”

  Already he regretted having started. To speak his troubles out loud made them sound petty and childish, something he might have brought to a grade-school principal. This morning he’d called in to work, claiming to have an unexpected doctor’s appointment, and his fellow contracts attorney—her name was Katherine Harrow but she insisted he call her Kat—had been perfectly pleasant and considerate, saying she hoped it was nothing serious, that he should stay home if he needed rest. But the thought of her in the office on her own for hours, taking all their calls and answering questions he might have fielded agitated him enough that he felt his weight shifting forward toward his feet, the impulse to run to the train station nearly making him stand. What was he doing here, wasting the morning, when he should have been at work, protecting his livelihood?

  By contrast, Rabbi Mike had settled into a posture of infinite patience, eyes locked on Paul, forehead lined just enough to give a sense of concentration—so different from the frustrated drumming of his thumb while the cantor sang his meandering tunes. Was this the real Rabbi Mike, or another performance? If he was bored, Paul couldn’t tell. It was what made him so convincing during his sermons, so natural on stage: in moments like these, whatever he projected on the surface was all you could see.

  “I’ve been doing the job since she was in pigtails,” he went on, staring up at the criss-crossing pipes overhead, the rusty joints, the tangled wires—the innards of the building not meant for his eyes. “How can someone half my age think she knows more about the industry than me? No offense to young people,” he added quickly, but Rabbi Mike showed no sign of being offended. “She says I haven’t kept up with the times, that I don’t understand all the changes. I have kept up. I just don’t think all the changes are necessary.”

  “I know what I know,” Rabbi Mike said. “I feel what I—”

  “I told her as much,” Paul said, suddenly irritated. Was this his only line? “But she doesn’t listen.”

  And then Rabbi Mike was standing, holding out a hand as if to usher Paul away. In an instant, shame, that ubiquitous fish, swallowed the worm of his anger whole. Why couldn’t he have more profound problems to discuss? Why couldn’t he have kept his mouth shut? “What do you say to taking a walk?” Rabbi Mike asked. “I could use a coffee. They’ve got some in the front office, but it’s sludge by now. There’s a diner down the street. Not much better, but, you know, nice to get out of my—what?” He gestured at the walls, the gutted ceiling, the folding chairs. “My palace.”

  When they were on the sidewalk, Rabbi Mike stroked his chin, gave Paul a quick glance, and said, “Tell me. This new co-worker of yours—she’s attractive?”

  “For a toddler,” Paul said.

  The rabbi’s laughter was forced and brief. “Seriously. She’s not a bad-looking woman.”

  “Sure,” Paul said. “But that doesn’t have anything to do—”

  “She’s got a pretty face?”

  “It’s not terrible.”

  “What’s nice about it? Big round eyes? Firm lips?”

  “The lips are good. And the cheekbones, I suppose.”

  Without warning, Rabbi Mike put out an arm that Paul walked into, and only then did he realize they were at an intersection, cars rushing at them. “What about the body?” Rabbi Mike asked.

  The light changed, and Paul stepped gingerly off the curb. “I’ve never noticed.”

  This time Rabbi Mike gave a genuine laugh. “Just like I never noticed the new doors on the ark are plastic. Or that my salary’s half what they pay Aronson, or my office is a quarter the size of his. She’s got a nice body, yes?”

  “Better than the face,” Paul said. They’d reached the diner, and Rabbi Mike held the door for him. He wanted to head straight for the bathroom. It hadn’t been terribly hot outside, but his face was sweating, and he would have liked to wipe it off or douse it in cold water. But Rabbi Mike had him by the elbow, leading him to a booth in back. He’d noticed the rabbi’s wedding ring on plenty of occasions, but only now did it occur to him to wonder why he’d never heard more than a few words about his wife and kids. Did he talk so little about Cynthia?

  “So she’s got a chest worth looking at,” Rabbi Mike said, squeezing, with difficulty, into the vinyl seat, sucking in his belly to keep it from scraping against the table.

  “Not huge or anything. Well proportioned.”

  “Then it’s the legs. That’s what gets you.”

  “The legs,” Paul repeated, as if hypnotized. “She likes to show them off.”

  “And you can’t help staring at them.”

  A waitress came to the table, as old as Paul and missing a tooth on her lower jaw, her bottom lip dipping into the empty space. They ordered coffee, and as she started to walk away, Rabbi Mike called her back. “Did I say I was finished?” She blinked at him. He scanned the menu and said to Paul, “I’m going to be good today. You’ll be proud of me.” And to the waitress, sharply, “Yogurt and fruit. No honeydew. I’m allergic. Anything for you?”

  Paul declined.

  “I hope it won’t take all day this time.” When she left them, he smiled sheepishly and adjusted his glasses. “Last week it took forty-five minutes to get a bagel. Anyway. Where were
we?”

  “I forget,” Paul said. He was used to the way Rabbi Mike spoke to servers by now, but he didn’t think he’d ever be able to hear the impatient, barking commands without cringing and looking down at his silverware.

  “Your co-worker’s legs,” Rabbi Mike said. “Shapely? Slim ankles, long calves, nice toned thighs?”

  “She runs at lunchtime,” Paul said.

  “So you spend a lot of time looking at them. And I’m guessing you spend some time thinking about them. In your office. When you come home. These legs are in your mind a good part of every day.”

  Paul shrugged. The window beside him was grimy, smeared with fingerprints. A few dark men loitered outside the store across the street, a little market that had recently begun selling shawarma and hummus along with beer and cigarettes. The road itself had been called Randall Avenue when he’d first moved in with Cynthia, but several years ago it had been renamed Martin Luther King, Jr., Boulevard. The changes were too many to list. Among them, that all the hair on his belly had turned white; that he had to take pills for cholesterol and blood pressure, plus melatonin to sleep; that he’d awoken one day to find himself approaching sixty years old.

  “You don’t have to be embarrassed about it,” Rabbi Mike said. “It’s perfectly natural. Here you’ve got this lovely young woman, half your age, and she comes into your office, what, three times a day, and maybe she even sits on your desk, so those legs she’s so proud of are right in front of you, a foot from your face, almost like she’s tempting you to reach out and stroke them.”

  “More like five times a day,” Paul said.

  The waitress came back with their coffee and Rabbi Mike’s food. The rabbi made her wait while he pushed the fruit around the bowl, a couple of sliced strawberries, shriveled red grapes, hunks of pineapple. “You didn’t sneak any honeydew in here, did you? It’ll make my throat close right up.” Then a little smile. “I shouldn’t have told you that. Now you can get back at me for lousy tips.”